If you are currently running a business or thinking of starting one, then you already know the importance of advertising. However, you may not know that doing this simple trick may help increase your advertising return.Do you grocery shop? Of course you do, otherwise you would never eat, or at least not eat at home. Ever notice at most, probably all by now, that grocery stores want you to sign up for those key cards or key tags?
If you are not sure what I am talking about, let me give you a little definition of what a key tag is. The supermarkets (and other stores) have you sign up, filling out a simple one form piece of paper with your name, address, email etc., on it and in turn they give you this key card or also known as a “special savings card”.
In return for signing up for their card, certain products are marked down at a discount and only those who have this magical card (not really magic but you get the point) receive the discount.
Many people wonder why a store would put their customers through that hassle of signing up for it just to get a few pennies off a product. The answer is simple, marketing and tracking.
Stores aren’t doing this because they would like to see their most loyal customers buy from them at a discount, although that may make up about 5% of the thought process. They do it to track what you buy and how often.
Every time you swipe that key tag, the store knows how much you bought, what you bought, the days in which you shop and so on. This information is golden when it comes to spending their advertising dollars. If the store knows you are more likely to buy frozen spinach over frozen beans, or if you are more than likely to shop on a Tuesday rather than a Friday, they can then tailor their advertising to reflect the customers shopping habits.
Now imagine hundreds if not thousands of data points like this on your customers. You can then use all of this data to really come up with a marketing and advertising campaign that would surely work.
Key cards, tags and special savings cards may not go with what your business does, but I can guarantee that setting up some kind of tracking of your customers will.
If you have an existing business and a decent customer base, then you need to obtain their spending habits. When do they like to come in and buy? What do they buy? How much? You need to ask these questions about your customers, and more importantly answer them honestly. The more you know about your customers, the better your advertising will be.
For example, if after you collect your data you find out males from the ages of 24 to 35 are three times more likely to buy your product, you can now tailor your advertising efforts to that demographic.
If you are looking to starting a bua you feedback on what you are selling. This will give you an immense amount of data to jump start your business.
Whichever direction you take to obtain data on your customers, the key here is to do it and get as much of it as possible. This will aid your business’s ad campaign a great deal.
By: Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:
Bruce A. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.indocquent.com/, an online resource that allows businesses and individuals to post their products and services for sale in 20,000 cities throughout 200 countries around the world.
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